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Monday, July 31, 2017

Last Sunday we began a new series of messages titled The Great Commandments.During the worship services last week I also asked that you help me with
the next series of messages I will present.That series is titled I
Love the Church Because… and I would love to hear from you.Would you finish that title with a few
sentences, or perhaps a paragraph or two, and send them to me?I will not use any identifying
characteristics if I incorporate what you send to me, but I would love to hear
how you finish that title.

As we
began our current series of messages last week, I used a passage from the Old
Testament prophet Micah, and this week travel further back into the Old
Testament to one of the most foundational of all passages.The passage comes from the book of
Deuteronomy and is commonly called the Shema.The word Shema is actually the Hebrew word for hear, and is the first word of verse 4.Though shema is
simply a Hebrew word, it also becomes a title for what is, in essence, a
prayer, which is all of verses 4 – 9.Taken together, these verses become a prayer that has for centuries been
offered each day in the morning and evening.This would be, if it is an apt comparison, the Hebrew
version of John 3:16, in that it is a passage that children would learn from a
young age and would be almost universally quoted from memory.

This
passage certainly would have been one of the first pieces of Scripture that
Jesus learned as a boy.He would
turn to this passage later, during his ministry, quoting it in Matthew 22:35-40
(35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36
"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"37 Jesus replied: "`Love
the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your
mind.' 38 This is the first and greatest commandment.39 And the second is like it:
`Love your neighbor as yourself.'40
All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.") and
Mark 12:28-34 (28 One of the teachers of the law came and
heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked
him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” 29 “The
most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our
God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The
second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment
greater than these.” 32 “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You
are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him.33 To love him with all
your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love
your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and
sacrifices.” 34 When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said
to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one
dared ask him any more questions).Jesus also quotes this passages in Luke 10:25-37, and then tells the
Parable of the Good Samaritan.

Follow along with me as I read our Scripture
text this morning from Deuteronomy 6:1-9 –

1 These are the commands, decrees and laws the
Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing
the Jordan to possess,

2 so that you, your children and
their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by
keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy
long life.

3 Hear, Israel, and be careful to
obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a
land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors,
promised you.

4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our
God, the Lord is one.

5 Love the Lord your God with all
your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

6 These commandments that I give
you today are to be on your hearts.

7 Impress them on your children.
Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you
lie down and when you get up.

8 Tie them as symbols on your
hands and bind them on your foreheads.

9 Write them on the doorframes of
your houses and on your gates.

I will take a few minutes this morning to speak
to those three expressions of love that Deuteronomy mentions, but I am going to
substitute one of them in the same way Jesus substituted.Deuteronomy says to love God with all
of our heart, soul, and strength.Jesus uses the words heart,
soul, and mind.I think it’s a good idea to use the
phrasing that Jesus used.

1.Mind.

I start with the mind because it is one of the
overlooked components of our love for God.I find it interestingly ironic that, in our modern,
technology obsessed, scientific age, we are not really people of the mind.We talk about the importance of
education, and even base much of our education upon science and
technology.Many colleges and
universities, and an increasing number of secondary schools, build their
curriculum around STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) to the
exclusion of the liberal arts and many of the traditional educational
curricula.But even with this
increasing move to the sciences, we are people who remain more oriented towards
the experiential and the emotional, which are represented by the heart.How many times do we hear ourselves
say, or how often do we hear in entertainment – romantic movies, in particular
– that we should stop using our head and
start following our heart?

But is that always the best of advice?Not always.As one person reminded me this morning, follow your heart, but take your mind along with you because you’re
heart is an idiot.Very sage
advice, indeed! Our mind is a necessary balance to
our heart, which doesn’t always make the best of decisions.Sometimes, for instance, we will say my heart just isn’t in it.But just because my heart isn’t in
something isn’t an excuse to forsake responsibilities.There are some Sunday mornings when I
might be particularly tired and my heart tells me to stay home and in bed, but
my head reminds me that there are people who will be here and they will be
waiting on me to stand up hear and bring a message.My head tells me that I have a responsibility as the
minister of this church to show up, and to not only show up here but show up in
hospitals, and nursing homes, and funeral homes, which are not places that I
always enjoy entering, but it is important that I do so.My heart is often attracted to all the
nice guitars hanging on the wall of a music store, and as much as I believe
they need a good home I know that if I followed my heart our basement walls
would be covered with guitars.My
head tells me that as much as my heart wants to take some of those guitars
home, I have bills to pay.I need
to pay the mortgage, and the electric bill, and the insurance bill, and lots of
other bills as well.

It’s a wonderful thing to follow our hearts,
until it’s a bad idea because our hearts might lead us somewhere unpractical
and harmful to us.That’s why God
gave us a mind; so that we can make a good and logical decision.We can’t be ruled by emotion.We can’t be ruled by impulse.We can’t be ruled by every wind that
blows our way.

Jesus warned us that we should be as wise as serpents and innocent as doves
(Matthew 10:16).He called us to
use our minds and in his brilliance he was such a great example of how to use
our minds.Jesus was brilliant in
his teaching, constructing those amazing parables that drew people in and then
drove home his point.He was
brilliant in the way he dealt with his opponents, as there were many times they
presented Jesus with what they believed to be an unanswerable question, and
believing they had effectively trapped him.But they did not, as Jesus came back with a brilliant
response and left them speechless, and often wary of challenging him
again.As we read the Gospels it
is truly impressive to see the ways in which the mind of Jesus worked.

I have spent a lot of time over the course of
my life studying.And while I
wasn’t always the most ambitious of students, and not always the best student,
I always liked the classroom and I love to learn.I have a lot of years invested in classes and degree
programs, and in spite of all the time and work invested there are many days
when I feel as though I don’t know very much.There are many days when I wish someone would ask me a
question I have the answer to.

There has too often been, in the history of
American Protestantism, especially, a spirit of anti-intellectualism that has
permeated too many churches.It is
an anti-intellectualism that sometimes seems to glory in ignorance, and that is
not, I’m certain, what God would desire.We do not check our minds at the front door of the church; instead we
sharpen our minds and we feed our minds, and we challenge our minds.

Verse 7 says to impress them on your children.
Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you
lie down and when you get up. That’s an entreaty to take seriously
the call we have to spiritual education.
I believe that, as followers of Jesus, we ought to use the minds
that God has given to us. The mind
really is a terrible thing to waste, as the old commercial said. When the Hebrew people taught their
children to recite this prayer it was part of a larger piece of spiritual
education they provided for their families. I am grateful for the opportunity churches have to provide
spiritual education, but we need as much spiritual education in the home as we
can have as well. When you
children, or your grandchildren, ask you a spiritual question and you don’t
know, take the time to study and seek an answer.

2.Heart.

There were times in history – the
Enlightenment, for instance – when the mind took precedence over the
heart.At that point in history,
they would have puzzled over our insistence to follow our heart rather than our head.During the Enlightenment, they would have been people who
would follow their heads rather than their hearts.

But we don’t want to be ruled by the head, do
we?We don’t want to be a Mr.
Spock, all logic and no emotion.Because of the power of love, we are people more oriented to the heart,
and as much as I like to learn and as much as I like to think and ponder over
things, I’ll take the heart. The heart and its accompanying emotion are
beautiful gifts.

But
I should add that it doesn’t have to be an either/or.In verse 8, the command to tie them as symbols on your
hands and bind them on your foreheads, was practiced quite literally, as the ancient Hebrews wore items
called phylacteries, which are small leather boxes which contained the verses
of the Shema (and they are still used
today). Phylacteries are worn on
the forehead and left arm during times of prayer.I really like the symbolism in the way phylacteries are tied
to a person’s body.One was tied
around the forehead, as if to symbolize the mind and our call to think and
meditate and be thoughtful.The
other phylactery was tied around the wrist, where it would nestle against the
heartbeat, as a reminder that we are not people of the mind only, but of the
heart as well.There is a balance
to being people of the mind and the heart, but if I had to choose, I would
choose on the side of the heart, because it represents love.

It is love that binds us together, and that
love also informs our language of how we speak of ourselves and it selects the
metaphors we use to describe who we are as God’s people.We often use the word family as a metaphor for the church. We
are like a family here, people will often say about their church. One metaphor of the church, in the New
Testament (often overlooked) is the church as the Bride of Christ.The
image of the church as the Bride of
Christ is particularly powerful, I believe, because we can’t conceive of a
love more powerful than the love that joins together two people in
marriage.It is a powerful,
powerful force, and a beautiful force in life.

We need the heart because it is the seat of our
passion, and we need passion in life.My mind will tell me, logically, that I need to step out of my own life
and do something for others, but when my heart is touched by the sight of
someone who is suffering, or someone who is hurt, or someone who is treated
unjustly, that’s when passion will fill my heart and I will be moved and
motivated in a way that the mind cannot accomplish.When Jesus observed what was going on in the Temple and saw
the way that the moneychangers and others were taking advantage of the
worshippers, he could have walked around and said, thoughtfully, you know, I’ve been walking around here and
observing what’s going on, and I’d like to make a suggestion about how we can
make this an experience that is fair to all involved.Is that what he did?No!When Jesus saw what was taking place his heart was about to
explode out of his chest, his passion was aroused, and his righteous anger rose
within him as he fashioned a whip and began to knock over the tables of the
moneychangers and drive them out while proclaiming my Father’s house is a house of prayer but you have turned it into a
den of thieves!(Matthew
21:12-13; Mark 11:15-19; Luke 19:45-46; John 2:13-16).In that instance, certainly, the heart
trumped the head, and rightfully so.

In John 11 we read of the death of
Lazarus.Jesus traveled to
Bethany, where Lazarus had lived with his sisters, Mary and Martha.Jesus could have turned to Mary and
Martha in their heartbreak and offered them a theological treatise on death and
resurrection, but he did not.Instead, Jesus went to the tomb of Lazarus, and what did he do?He wept (John 11:35).Isn’t that a beautiful, powerful
image?I don’t know about you, but
I feel so much better to think about the fact that Jesus wept.I’m glad that the heart of Jesus was
sometimes so touched and so broken that he wept.I am moved to think of Jesus, there at the tomb of Lazarus,
with tears streaming down his face and into the dirt and dust of that
land.It makes me feel better when
my heart is touched or broken.Sometimes I weep because I am so overwhelmed with fears or struggles and
I don’t know what to do but the fact that Jesus also wept gives me
strength.I can’t always reason
myself out of fear and struggles, but I can weep and allow those tears to
cleanse my soul and when they have cleansed my soul I can feel the strength of
God welling up within me and I know I can make it another day.Maybe nothing has changed, but I feel
better, because I know that God is a God who weeps with me and a God who has
had heartbreak, just like each of us.

3.Soul.

The mind and the heart are a little bit easier
in terms of what they represent.What about the soul? I have
to be honest and say that, while the mind and heart were relatively easy for
me, the soul was a bit tougher.After
a good deal of thought this is what I came to think – the soul represents that
upon which we stake our lives.The
soul represents what it is that we have built our lives upon, and what kind of
foundation we have for our lives?In Matthew 16:26, Jesus says, What good will it be for someone to gain
the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange
for their soul?

It is very easy to trade away our souls for
something much less valuable.Sometimes we use the term Esau
trade to describe a very bad decision.Esau, you will remember, traded his birthright to his
brother Jacob for some food (Genesis 25:27-34 – 27 The boys grew up,
and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was
content to stay at home among the tents. 28 Isaac, who had a taste
for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob. 29 Once when
Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. 30 He
said to Jacob, “Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I’m famished!”(That is why he was also called
Edom.)31 Jacob replied,
“First sell me your birthright.”32 “Look,
I am about to die,” Esau said. “What good is the birthright to me?”33 But Jacob said, “Swear
to me first.” So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob.34 Then Jacob gave Esau
some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and
left.So Esau despised his
birthright.)It has become too
easy, in our modern world, to make an Esau
trade for our souls.We can
easily trade away that which is of far great value – our soul – for something
new, shiny, bright, and attractive, but ultimately of far lesser value.

In Luke
12:13-21 Jesus tell the story of a rich man, who did just that.Jesus tells us that the man committed
the very error of which Jesus warned – he gained everything, but lost his soul
in the process (13 Someone
in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance
with me.” 14 Jesus
replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” 15 Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on
your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of
possessions.” 16 And
he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an
abundant harvest. 17 He
thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ 18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I
will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my
surplus grain. 19 And
I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life
easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’ 20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This
very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have
prepared for yourself?’ 21 “This
is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich
toward God.”).

The heart and mind are important for many
reasons, but one of the most important of reasons is to protect our souls.The mind helps us to filter out the
false claims to our souls and the heart will guide us to the true loves in life
that will attach us to what will ultimately nourish our souls.

It is very common for people to wear items of jewelry or clothing
that symbolize their faith or, perhaps, remind the wearer of their faith and
its importance in their lives, much as the ancient Hebrews wore phylacteries.I wear two items on my right wrist for
that purpose.One is a leather
strap that wraps three times around my wrist.Tanya and I bought a few of these when we were at the
Vatican two years ago.It has the
Lord’s Prayer printed in Latin on the leather.I also have a bracelet with the word peace on it, and the symbol of a dove engraved on it, which is the
symbol of the Holy Spirit.I wear
it because peace is a hope and a prayer not only for the world, but for my own
heart and the heart of others, and it serves as a reminder to me of the peace
that Jesus is the source of that peace.

The heart, soul, and mind are great gifts of God to us, and are,
ultimately, to be the guiding stars in our love for him.

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

This morning we begin a new series of messages titled The Great
Commandments.We begin with a
passage from the Old Testament prophet Micah, a passage which contains one of
the most famous of all prophetic messages – And
what does the Lord require of you?To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly
with your God.That’s a great
verse to memorize, and if you like to mark favorite verses in your Bible, be
sure and underline that one, mark it with a highlighter, and fold over the edge
of the page so you can turn to it quickly.

After we complete this series we
will move to a series called I Love the
Church.I would appreciate
your help on that series.If you would
complete the sentence I Love the Church
Because… I would appreciate hearing from you (I will not identify you in
any of the comments I use).I
would add that I’m not looking for comments such as I love the church because I can get a 20-minute nap every week during
the sermon.If you do write
that, I will be sure and identify you!One of the messages of that series will be titled I Love the Church In Spite of…That message will address not only the hurts that we
sometimes experience in the life of the church, but also the accusations that
are often leveled at churches, such as being full of hypocrites, etc.

This morning, as we begin our new
series, we do so by acknowledging that the prophets were an amazing breed of
people. While we generally think
of the prophets as thundering out God’s judgment upon the people of Israel,
they were far more than just pronouncers of divine judgment. The prophets fulfilled several
functions, one of which was to speak the right word for the right moment. This meant that there were indeed times
when they would be confrontational and judgmental, but there were other times
when they were very comforting, gentle, and pastoral. Sometimes people need to be confronted, but not always. Sometimes people need to be comforted
and they need pastoral care. The
prophets knew what was needed, which is not always an easy task. The prophets were also called to speak
the truth, even when doing so put them in danger. The classic example of this, to me, is when the prophet
Nathan confronted King David over his affair with Bathsheeba and the subsequent
action David took to ensure the death of her husband, Uriah. It was an incredibly bold move on the
part of Nathan to make such a public accusation against the king, but he did
so, in spite of the fact that it could have put his own life at risk. (1The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he
came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the
other poor. 2 The
rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, 3 but the poor man had nothing except one
little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his
children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It
was like a daughter to him. 4 “Now a traveler came to the rich man,
but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to
prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe
lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to
him.” 5 David burned with anger against the man
and said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must
die! 6 He
must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no
pity.” 7 Then Nathan said to David, “You are the
man! This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over
Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. 8 I gave your master’s house to you, and
your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you all Israel and Judah. And if all
this had been too little, I would have given you even more. 9 Why did you despise the word of the Lord
by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the
sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the
Ammonites. 10 Now,
therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me
and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’ 11 “This is what the Lord says: ‘Out of
your own household I am going to bring calamity on you. Before your very eyes I
will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will
sleep with your wives in broad daylight. 12 You did it in secret, but I will do this
thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’” 13 Then
David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” II Samuel 12:1-13).

I imagine that the prophets did not
always want to be confrontational, but they were at times because it was a
necessity, as it is today.Prophets fulfill the function of speaking truth, sometimes very hard
truth, to the people that need to hear it, and it is often the people in power
who need to hear those truths.I
am not a prophet.I am a pastor;
that is how I understand myself.But sometimes my role requires that I speak even the hard truths that I
don’t want to speak.Not many
people are able to effectively strike the balance of being prophetic and
pastoral; generally speaking, we are one or the other.The prophets, however, were unique
individuals in that they were able to be speak a prophetic word when necessary,
but also be pastoral as the need presented itself.

In this week’s Scripture text we
read of three commands that are offered by the prophet Micah – to act justly, to
love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.It is interesting to note, I think, that these commands are
action-oriented, that is, they are not commands about belief.Sometimes churches become so concerned
about right belief we forget that Scripture has quite a bit to say about right
action.I am not minimizing the
importance of doctrine and belief, and it is a gift to us that we have 2,000
years of Christian theology upon which we can build a foundation of faith, but
our faith is not only about belief; it is also about action.Right action was at the heart of the
message of the prophets.It is
difficult to find many references of the prophets prescribing belief, but there
are many, many references to the prophets prescribing right action.

Follow along with me as I read from
the 6th chapter of Micah.

Micah 6:1-8 –

1 Listen to what the Lord says:“Stand up, plead my case before the mountains;let
the hills hear what you have to say.

2 “Hear, you mountains, the Lord’s
accusation;listen,
you everlasting foundations of the earth.For the Lord has a case against his people; he is lodging a charge
against Israel.

3 “My people, what have I done to you?How have I burdened you? Answer me.

4 I brought you up out of Egyptand redeemed you from the land of
slavery.I
sent Moses to lead you,also
Aaron and Miriam.

5 My people, rememberwhat Balak king of Moab plottedand what Balaam son of Beor answered.Remember
your journey from Shittim to Gilgal,that you may know the righteous acts of
the Lord.”

6 With what shall I come before the Lordand bow down before the exalted God?Shall I come before him with burnt
offerings,with
calves a year old?

7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands
of rams,with
ten thousand rivers of olive oil?Shall I
offer my firstborn for my transgression,the fruit of my body for the sin of my
soul?

8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is
good.And
what does the Lord require of you?To act justly and to love mercyand
to walk humbly with your God.

It
is very convenient that Micah provided a three-point outline for us to follow,
and I will spend some moments on each of these three commands given by Micah – act justly, love mercyand
walk humbly with your God

1.Act justly.

The prophets are perhaps most well
known for their stern proclamations, often having to do with God’s condemnation
of the lack of justice in social systems and his anger at the unfair treatment
of people, particularly people of little means, power, or influence.In the ancient world it was common for
the wealthy and powerful to take advantage of the poor.Economic policies were often designed not
only to drive people into poverty, but to keep them trapped in that poverty.The use of taxation policy, usury, and
other economic practices made life very difficult for scores of people.It was, to use modern language, a
rigged system (as is still the case today, so the words of the prophets remain
very timely and applicable).

When
discussing commands it is important to make a distinction between the types of
commands that are offered in the Bible.The Bible’s commands can generally be categorized under the heading of
either prohibition or prescription.Commands of prohibition are the most well known and would be
those such as found in the Ten Commandments, most of which start with the words
thou shalt not.A prohibition,
simply put, prohibits certain behaviors – thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal,
and thou shalt not bear false witness.A prescription is the opposite, in that it does not prohibit certain
behaviors as much is it commands that we engage in certain behaviors.A commandment of prohibition is aimed
at preventing behavior that is destructive and harmful, such as theft and
violence.The aim of prescriptive
commands is to encourage behavior that is positive and helps to strengthen the
fabric of society, such as laws that treat people equally and fairly and do not
give unfair advantage to particular groups.An example of a prescriptive command is one related to what
was called gleaning, which was the practice of leaving part of a field
unharvested so that the poor could have a portion of the crop (Leviticus 23:22
– when you reap the harvest of your land,
do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your
harvest.Leave them for the poor
and the alien.This practice
of gleaning is central to the story of the book of Ruth).Law of prescription were not only limited
to the prophets, but can be found throughout the Scriptures, such as this one
in Romans 12:20-21 – To the contrary,
“if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to
drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be
overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Justice is an incredibly important practice; it was in the ancient
world and remains so in our modern world.We hear a great deal about social
justice these days.Social justice is a term of which I am not
a big fan, not because I don’t believe in justice, but I don’t think we often
realize what we mean by a term such as social
justice.For example, while
attending the General Assembly last week I was interested, as always, in the
resolutions that were presented to the Assembly.We are a group of autonomous congregations, so those
resolutions have no binding power upon us, but they are important in that they
speak for our denomination.One of
the resolutions presented was to express support for Palestinian children.I am all for offering support to
Palestinian children, but I couldn’t help but wonder about other children in
the world who need our expression of support.What about the children of Syria, who have suffered so much
because of the warfare that has ripped apart that country?What about the children of the many
people migrating into Europe, seeking a better life?What about the children of South and Central American who
are making the perilous journey – sometimes without their parents – to the
north to find a better life?Don’t
all the children of the world – especially those in such difficult conditions –
deserve our expressions of support and desire for justice?The resolution was far too narrow in
its wording, in my opinion, and betrayed a rather narrow focus, as it was more
about reacting to the political context of our own society.The prophets had a universal message,
and any resolution that limits its scope to our political context rather than
understanding the larger, more universally perspective, does not reflect the
concern of the prophets, in my opinion.Imagine, for instance, if you have more than one child, someone praying
for only one of your children.It
wouldn’t take long before you would object.I am one of five children; I have an older and younger
brother and two younger sisters.Imagine if someone continually told my parents, we are praying for Dave.We pray that God blesses him and looks over him.After a while they might have said, we have other children as well, you know.If we only express a desire for justice
and only express an interest in some people we are doing the same as a person
who would only pray for one of a couple’s children.God would say to us, I imagine, I have more children, you know.My children aren’t just in your congregation.They are not just in Shelbyville.They are not just in Kentucky.They are not just in the United States.My children are everywhere because
every person is my child!God’s
interest is broader than only our society, and that is what the prophets were
trying to get people to understand.

2.Love mercy.

I
don’t know about you, but I have a love/hate relationship with social media.I am a regular user of social media
because it is another tool that helps me to stay in touch with people, but I
also believe that it brings out many of our worst elements and magnifies them.As a case in point, I read an article
recently that absolutely astounded me.I had hoped that it was, perhaps, “fake news,” so I did a little
research to determine the authenticity of the story and found it was indeed
true.

The
story came out of the state of Florida and told of a disabled man entering into
a lake.Not long after entering
the lake he began having difficulty and called out for help.A group of people were near the edge of
the lake but did nothing to help the man.In fact, not only did they not help the man, but they began to taunt him
and even to video him as he struggled to keep his head above water and they
continued to video as he eventually drowned.But the sadness of the story does not end there; after the
man died at least one of the onlookers posted the video of the drowning on the
internet.

Is
this what we have come to?Have we
lost all sense of mercy in this world?Thankfully, no we have not lost all mercy, although we have certainly
lost some.Mercy was one of the
traits of the prophets, even though we often associate them with judgment.But, as I said at the beginning of the
message, the prophets knew the right word for the right moment, so they were
just as at home being pastoral and merciful as they were judgmental (I can
think of a number of passages, among them this one that is a particular
favorite of mine – Isaiah 40: 29-31 – He gives power to
the faint, and to him who has no might He increases strength.Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men
shall fall exhausted.But
they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength.They shall run and not be weary.They shall walk and not faint).

I
think it is also fair to ask, if there is a moral responsibility to be
merciful to someone drowning within your field of vision, does that
responsibility go away when distance increases?I believe those witnesses to the man’s drowning had a moral
obligation to help him, but tragically, they abdicated that
responsibility.If we have an
obligation to someone in our field of vision, what about those who are outside
of our field of vision and, most often then, out of our thoughts as well.The prophets, once again, reminded us
to always have a larger field of vision, extending our care and our work for
justice to those outside of our own families, our own communities, and even our
own nation.

3.Walk
humbly with your God.

Humility,
Paul reminds us, is one of the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:23). The prophets also made the case for
allowing humility to be a part of our lives.

Now,
I am not a Hebrew scholar – or a scholar of any language.I have spoken before about my struggles
with Greek.While struggling
through three years of Greek, I held on to the hope I heard expressed by many,
and that was their assertion that Hebrew is a much easier language.Let me tell you this, just in case you
are one of those who think it would be “great to read the Bible in its original
languages” – Hebrew is a very difficult language!There are no vowels, it reads backwards from what we are
accustomed to, and the letters do not correspond to anything that look like the
letters in our alphabet.I say
that to remind you that when I speak about the Hebrew language I am dependent
upon others for their expertise.I
have learned this fascinating bit of insight about the Hebrew word used for humility in this verse.The particular Hebrew word is used only
in this one instance in the entire Old Testament. Although humility is a word
used throughout the Old Testament, the Hebrew word used in this verse is used
only in this one instance.Isn’t
that fascinating?And here is what
it implies – it speaks to us about the classic horizontal/vertical relationship
between God and his followers.That is, if we consider ourselves to be a follower of God we must
remember that the horizontal relationship – our relationship to our fellow man
– is very important.In fact, the
word used here implies that if we are not working for justice for others and if
we are not demonstrating care then we cannot claim to be walking with God.

That’s
quite a powerful truth, isn’t it?We cannot be right with God if we are not right with others.A right relationship with God requires
a right relationship with others, and this is why the prophets so often railed
against injustice and the ills of society, because they understood the
importance of that connection.

The
particular Hebrew word for humbly that
is used here appears only this single time in all of the Old Testament.It carries the meaning of walking with,
and what that means is that there is a union between one’s faith and one’s
relationship to other people.It
ties together our relationship with God and other people.This is the culmination – you can’t
have this definition of humility unless things are right with God and humanity.

And so I will close with this thought – we are talking about The Great Commands, but does treating
our fellow human beings justly, with mercy, and with humility need to be
commanded?Shouldn’t that be
obvious, and shouldn’t it also be something we would do without having to be
commanded?It would be wonderful
if that were the case, but obviously it is not.When we survey the course of human history, and when we
survey current events, it becomes obvious why these kinds of behaviors are
commanded by God – because otherwise they may not be put into practice. Act
justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.Not just great advice, but great
commands as well.

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

This morning we conclude our series of
messages, Music From the Heart.Next week we begin a series of messages
titled The Great Commandments.

Today’s message title is You’re My
Best Friend, and is based on the song of the same name by the band Queen (you can watch and listen to a very
creative version of the song at the following link – https://youtu.be/0X2ee2A2IGU).

As I
mentioned last week, three of the four messages have come from Old Testament
texts, because I believe that we sometimes overlook that portion of the Bible,
which is full of such great stories, and today’s text contains a portion of one
of those – the friendship between David and Jonathan.Time doesn’t allow me to cover all the background of this
story, so I hope you took the time to read the study guide that was emailed on
Thursday.If you do not receive
email, and would like to receive a printed copy of the study guides, please let
us know in the church office.

David
became the second king of Israel, following the reign of Saul.David was a very close friend of
Jonathan, whose father was Saul, the first king of Israel.Saul had become very jealous of David
and sought on more than one occasion to kill him.Jonathan worked to protect his friend David, and in today’s
Scripture text we read of the time when Jonathan provides a signal to David
that the king had once again planned to kill David.This passage tells us of the parting of the two friends,
just before David flees for his life.

Follow
along with me, please, as I read a portion of that story.

I Samuel 20:35-42 –

35 In the morning Jonathan went out to the field for his meeting with
David. He had a small boy with him,

36 and he said to the boy, “Run and find the arrows I shoot.” As the boy
ran, he shot an arrow beyond him.

37 When the boy came to the place where Jonathan’s arrow had fallen,
Jonathan called out after him, “Isn’t the arrow beyond you?”

38 Then he shouted, “Hurry! Go quickly! Don’t stop!” The boy picked up the
arrow and returned to his master.

39 (The boy knew nothing about all this; only Jonathan and David knew.)

40 Then Jonathan gave his weapons to the boy and said, “Go, carry them
back to town.”

41 After the boy had gone, David got up from the south side of the stone
and bowed down before Jonathan three times, with his face to the ground. Then
they kissed each other and wept together—but David wept the most.

42 Jonathan said to David, “Go in peace, for we have sworn friendship with
each other in the name of the Lord, saying, ‘The Lord is witness between you
and me, and between your descendants and my descendants forever.’” Then David
left, and Jonathan went back to the town.

There
are so many things we can say about friends, and I will, for the sake of time,
limit it to three.

Friends are –

1.Gifts from God.

I have
to admit that I am sometimes skeptical about the number of “friends” some
people have on social media.Is it
really possible to have 3,000 “friends” on Facebook?Maybe I’m jealous, but I sometimes doubt whether it is
possible to have that many friends.At the same time, however, I realize that, over the course of our lives,
we meet a lot of people, and while they may not all be our close friends, they
are acquaintances and they can also have an impact on our lives.Almost every person we meet during the
course of our lives has the potential to influence us, to impact us, and to
make a difference in our lives, which is a true gift.

Being
at church camp two weeks ago I witnessed the amazing bond that the counselors
and students have forged through their years of sharing the camp
experience.It got me to thinking
about my camp friends from many years ago. I remember some of my camp friends
very well.You wouldn’t know their
names, but people like Rocky Estell, who was a friend from East Liverpool,
Ohio.I also remember many of the
leaders and counselors – Karl Marshall, Gene Carter, and others.And though I have also forgotten a lot
of names, those people still influence my life, and they continue to be gifts
of God to me.It’s difficult for
me to imagine what my life would be like without their friendship and their
influence.

How
many of you remember graduation time, when you stood in line before processing
in, or after the ceremony concluded, and you said to your friends and
classmates, we’ll stay in touch.We won’t forget one another.We’ll always be friends.I said that at my high school
graduation, and some of those friends I have not seen since that night.But it doesn’t mean that they are
absent from my life, because I think of many of them often, and I know they
remain influential to my life and I am grateful they were a part of my life,
even though it has been years since I have seen some of them.There are college friends, church
friends, neighborhood friends, and more that move in and out of our lives.They are with us for a season and then
we are separated, maybe to never cross paths again, but that does not diminish
the reality of the gift they are to our lives.

Last
summer I had the opportunity to meet with my college roommate.Tanya and I met Rick and his wife,
Penny, in Harrodsburg, as they were in that area vacationing with their family.I had not seen Rick in over twenty-five
years, so it was such a pleasure to sit and talk with him.We talk back and forth on Facebook, but
to sit with him and relive our time together in college was a wonderful
experience.Rick was, and
continues to be, a very important person in my life, and when we greeted one
another last summer it was like the years suddenly melted away and we picked up
where we had left off.

This
story of the parting of David and Jonathan resonates with all of us, because we
know what it is to be separated from friends.The parting of David and Jonathan was, obviously, very
emotional, but their friendship remained, even though they were separated from
one another.

Scripture provides us with other such examples and one comes from
Acts 20:36–38, where we read that Paul is preparing to depart from Ephesus – 36 When he had said this, he
knelt down with all of them and prayed.37 They all wept as they embraced him and kissed him.38 What grieved them most was his
statement that they would never see his face again. Then they accompanied him
to the ship.Paul
had been with his friends in Ephesus for about two years, and as he parts they
know they will never see him again.Imagine the emotion of that moment!And yet they knew, as we know, that even when we are apart,
our friends are ever with us.

2.The Hands and Feet of Christ.

We
often use the expression that we are called to be the hands and feet of Christ.
That is a function of friends.
Friends help friends build a home, as we did this weekend working on the
Powell family’s Habitat home, and in doing so, are the hands and feet of
Christ. Friends take off work to
come and cut wood, and in doing so are the hands and feet of Christ. Friends give up a Saturday to frame
walls and they are happy to do so, and are the hands and feet of Christ. Friends sit with us in hospital rooms
and funeral homes, and in doing so are the hands and feet of Christ. They laugh with us, cry with us,
comfort us, encourage us, strengthen us, and in doing all this, are the hands
and feet of Christ.

I was
at the General Assembly in Indianapolis from last Sunday evening until
Wednesday evening.The theme of
the Assembly was One.That was alto the title of my second
message in this series – One.The Assembly featured people of
different states, different nations, different ethnicities, different
languages, and different points of view, but together are the hands and feet of
Christ.What else can unite such a
disparate group of people, bringing them together for a common purpose that
lifts them above anything that might separate them?Nothing that I know of, except to be the hands and feet of
Christ. The church is unique in
that it crosses every boundary of humanity – language, ethnicity, nationality,
social, economic, educational, class (have a missed any?) – and recognizes God
as the supreme authority and ruler over all.

Christ
represents all people, and by being a part of the church – the body of Christ –
we become his hands and feet in all that we do.In this way, we are become more than friends, we become part
of something larger than ourselves; we become family.

3.Friends Are Family.

While
attending the General Assembly I noticed an interesting practice.When I went to eat, because I was by
myself, most restaurants seated me off in a corner. In fact, at one restaurant, I was seated in a section of the
restaurant where no one else was seated.Talk about feeling isolated!I was not only isolated, but forgotten.After sitting there for about fifteen minutes, with no
server coming to take my order or bring me something to eat, I left.The next restaurant I entered also
seated me off in a corner by myself.Now, I have to admit that after surviving a week of church camp with a
bunch of middle schoolers I didn’t mind a bit of isolation and quiet, but after
several times of being seated off by myself I began to wonder if there was
something wrong with me!

While
we are like – and need – our quiet time, no one wants to be isolated.We need
friends because we are created as social creatures.And while we all have our families, some families are so
dysfunctional and unhealthy that friends become even more important.

Tanya
and I celebrated our 33rd anniversary in May.For all of those years we have not
lived near any of our family.We
are hundreds of miles from our nearest relatives, so the church becomes a
surrogate family for us.In each
church we have served, we have enjoyed “adopted” families.In Lawrenceburg, Bill and Evelyn
Endicott were like second parents to us.Bill and Evelyn owned the hardware store in Lawrenceburg and were well
known in the community for their generosity and care to many people, especially
to their ministers.They lived up
the street from Tanya and me at the time and were like second parents to
us.They have both been gone for a
number of years but I will never forget how much they cared for us and how they
became family for us.I think of
Fred and Lennie Taylor, members of our previous church, who took Bill and
Evelyn’s place as adopted parents to us.I am grateful to all those who were like second parents to us, who
became adopted siblings to us, adopted grandparents to our children, and
welcomed us into their families.

Friendships
binds us together not just as acquaintances, not just as friends, but as family.In fact, we often speak of our church
as being our church family.We speak of the family of God, which is
a very apt description.At the
General Assembly the church was often refereed to as the beloved community.That sounds a lot like a family to me.

David
and Jonathan were not just friends; they were family.Imagine how difficult it must have been for Jonathan, whose
father sought to kill his friend, David.Imagine the pain of being caught between your father and your best
friend!Blood is a bond, certainly,
but the bond of friendship can be, sometimes, an even greater bond.It certainly was for David and
Jonathan.

I am
grateful for you, my friends, my family.You all are a gift of God to me, and I will always be grateful for The Power of Friendship that comes into
my life because of you.